The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [17]
Tony’s idea, I think, was that troupe performers would come and go, but from the beginning there was something magnetic about our little road show. It didn’t draw very many people in, but those of us it drew, it held.
I myself never imagined being on the road with Tony and Magdelena for more than a season or two. I had fantasies of finding some beautiful seaside town to settle into, of meeting some green-eyed stranger who’d sweep me off my feet. Then I thought, Well, maybe give it a year, then think about getting a real job. It wasn’t until the sunrise on Highway 84 rolling into Oregon last month that it dawned on me: This show had been my life for seven years. I had to pull over on the narrow desert shoulder. Barbaro slept in the backseat. Paula snored from the passenger’s side. And that crazy rising cantaloupe sun behind us. Seven years.
“Your stigmata is so realistic,” Judy says.
It’s just the two of us now, saltwater lapping at our toes. I managed to slip away from the group interview at the Pig ’N Pancake, but not before agreeing to meet Judy later. She had a few questions for me, she said. She caught up with me at Clatsop Beach where the old shipwreck rests rusty-tired and half submerged and the sand glows a strange iridescent purple under the clouded sky.
“Isn’t this lavender sand cool?” Judy says.
I nod. “I think it’s radioactive—there was a nuclear power station upriver.”
“Oh.” She looks down at her bare feet, like maybe she should put her boots back on.
We sit on a spindrift log and she starts in. “So, are you Catholic?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Raised Catholic.”
“Oh. Whereabouts?”
I don’t want to answer that. I’m from the place where you stand on what you think is ground and then they pull it out from under you like a cheap IKEA rug. Infrastructure of dreams and the hum of neon lights. “San Francisco,” I finally say. “That area.”
“Well.” Judy sighs. “As I was saying. Your stigmata. It’s rather eerie.”
“I know. It’s a weird trick. I’ve been trying to figure out how to pull a rabbit out of a hat or something, you know, more normal.” I dig my heel into the wet sand.
Judy laughs uneasily. “Your ‘trick’ as you call it—how do you do it?” She leans in, like this is just between the two of us.
I can’t help but laugh. “A magician never gives away her tricks.”
She nods like Barbara Walters. “Is that what you are, Frankka? A magician?”
I could do without Judy and her stupid interview questions, but every time I think to tell her to shove it, I remember my fellow travelers at the Worker’s Bar, spinning excited over the L.A. Times. Grin through it, Frankka.
“Maybe you can tell me a little something about your relationship with Christ,” Judy tries.
The tide’s coming in. These questions can’t last forever, can they? We’re performing tonight in Lincoln City. “I just enjoy being on the road,” I tell her. “I’ve been lucky enough to hook up with some really talented people. My trick isn’t anything special. The other performers just keep me around because they’re used to me and I can drive for twenty-four hours before I start seeing elephants on the highway.”
There’s a silence. Judy’s dark eyes keep wandering from mine to my hands, like she’s hoping to catch a quick glimpse of my palms, but I’ve long since learned how to gesture and clasp without revealing my tiny pink scars.
“Some people,” Judy finally says. “Some people would consider you the star of the show.”
I shake my head again. “Magdelena and Madre are the stars, and probably better at this whole interview thing than me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Judy says. Her teeth could be an ad for Crest White Strips. “I find you quite compelling.” She stares at the rusted ship. “I wonder why they don’t have that ship carcass hauled off the beach.”
“I guess some people think it’s beautiful.” Looks like rain again.